My critics maintain that a Knight-Ridder news report that Bush is punting on some of the issues is an editorial statement accusing him of unscrupulousness

But I maintain that while "punts" might not have been exactly the correct word to use here, that it was not consciously intended by the K-R reporter to be pejorative and that most news organizations (except possibly Fox) intend their news stories to be neutral in tone

President Bush's proposed budget takes a small step toward reining in long-term spending, but experts warn that his plan punts on the hard choices needed to end deficits and put America's future finances on stronger footing.--Knight Ridder

Now, here's what punting is all about. When faced with a bad field position and the possibility that you are going to give the opposition excellent field position, one of the options in American football is punting the ball, which means simply kicking it as far down the field as you can, thus giving it to the opposition, and hoping that you can pin them way back. It is usually done on fourth down, where failure to make a first down will result in automatically turning over the ball. But it can be done on any down, as was demonstrated by the great John Elway, arguably the best quarterback ever in the National Football League. In certain third down and very long situations Elway would execute what they called a pooch kick, a fairly short punt that was designed to pin the opposition back inside their own ten-yard line. But I digress.

Here's the meaning:

You can be in a situation where you are faced with two not-so-good options: try to make the first down or give the ball away. The first option is often perceived as far more difficult, so the coach opts for the "easy way out": a punt.

And that is what K-R is saying. Rather than dig down and do all the hard and dirty work necessary to achieve a goal (touchdown or whatever political goal you care to conceive) the President has chosen to punt the ball away and let the opposition have a go at it.

PLEASE let's confine this to discussing the term punt, not the political situation, or Jackie will hand me my head.

Ted, thank you for the exhaustive analysis. Although at first I didn't think so, consensus has it that the K-R "news" report could be an example of what the right wing refers to as the leftward bias of the media. Without intending a political statement, however, I still maintain that any such apparently liberal slant on the report of a typical newsreporter is either unintentional or reflects a subconscious attitude better representing the reality of the situation

Doesn't make any difference whether it's conscious or unconscious, though it may well be that the experts used the word "punts" rather than the reporter's injecting it into the story.

But if the reporter put it in, it's not a good thing. My mother, God rest her soul, was a journalist who was not above injecting things like this into a story. One she got in a spot of trouble for was a reference to a politician's friends as cronies rather than the more neutral term friends or colleagues. And she double damn sure did it on purpose. She and I had a few words about it, and the editor who let it through got a pretty good tongue-lashing. Mom came darned close to being fired.

Ted: But even if accusing somebody of punting is derogatory, if I report that an unspecified expert accuses the president of punting, I'm simply reporting the news, not expressing an opinion. So how can you accuse K-R of editorializing

Quote:If the experts SAID this, they should be quoted. But the way it's written you cannot tell whether they said something else and the reporter inserted the word punt into the story. That was my point.

While it's unlikely that "the experts" all used the word punt, the experts that he's summarizing here said negative things and may well have said much worse. He may actually be showing bias the other way by softening it to punt. For example:

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